Northern lights season 2026-27

Is 2026-27 a good season for the northern lights in Tromsø?

Yes. Solar activity is falling from the 2024 peak, but the declining phase still brings strong storms, and Tromsø sits under the auroral oval where even quiet nights can show the lights.

Solar maximum for cycle 25 very likely came in October 2024, based on the smoothed sunspot count. Space.com puts all of 2025 in the declining phase and expects the trend to continue through 2026. Fewer sunspots, fewer flares. Not zero.

The UK Met Office said in January 2026 that the declining phase "can often bring strong events", and history backs that up: cycle 23 produced the Halloween storms of 2003, two years after its peak, and cycle 24 fired its two largest flares in September 2017, more than three years after its peak. This cycle has kept going too. A G4 (severe) storm hit on 11 November 2025, and another G4 arrived on 20 January 2026 after an X-class flare two days earlier.

For Tromsø, all of this matters less than you would think. Visit Tromsø notes that high solar activity has "little impact on the activity directly below the Northern Lights oval". Big storms make headlines further south. Up here, a clear sky on an ordinary night is often enough.

When does the 2026-27 northern lights season start and end?

The sky is dark enough from late August, tours run from early September, and the season fades out in early April as the nights get too bright.

Visit Tromsø gives the window as late August to early April, "whenever the sky is dark and sufficiently clear", with most northern lights activities starting in early September. That matches the sky. In late August the night is only a short stretch of twilight; by mid September Tromsø gets proper darkness again, and from then on the dark hours grow every week until the solstice.

At the other end, real darkness at night runs out in the first week or so of April 2027. After that, the sky never gets darker than twilight, and by late May the midnight sun takes over. The times below are approximate dark-sky windows for Tromsø, worked out from the Sun's position. Use them for planning, not to the minute.

What is different about this winter compared with 2024-25?

Fewer headline storms than at the peak, more storms from long-lived holes in the Sun's atmosphere that can come back about every 27 days, and the same Tromsø weather.

At solar maximum the big events come from sunspot groups and their flares. On the way down, a lot of the activity comes from coronal holes: open patches in the Sun's atmosphere that send out fast solar wind. They can last several rotations, and the Sun turns once about every 27 days as seen from Earth, so a disturbed night can repeat roughly four weeks later. NOAA publishes a 27-day outlook of expected geomagnetic activity, which is a fair first look when you are picking dates.

The equinoxes help too. Geomagnetic activity tends to run higher around late September and late March, an effect explained in plain language by EarthSky. The March 2027 equinox is on 20 March, which makes mid to late March a good bet if you prefer milder days.

One practical change: Norway turns the clocks back on 25 October 2026 and forward on 28 March 2027. Check your tour's start time around those dates: after 25 October the dark comes an hour earlier on the clock, and after 28 March an hour later.

Which dates should you know for the 2026-27 aurora season?

The new moons, the polar night and the equinox. A dark, moonless sky makes faint aurora easier to see; a full moon lights the landscape but washes out weak displays.

The moon does not stop the aurora. A bright display shines through moonlight easily, and plenty of photographers like the lit snow and mountains. But for faint arcs, the week around a new moon gives the darkest sky. Moon dates below are from calendar.center (a day either side is close enough for planning), and the sun dates are for Tromsø centre.

How should you plan your nights this season?

Stay at least three or four nights, book a chase early in the trip, and keep a spare evening. The weather decides more than the Sun.

Coastal Tromsø catches weather off the sea, and cloud can sit over the island for days. That is the whole reason chase tours exist: a guide reads the cloud maps and drives inland, or across the border to Finland, to find a gap. Guests on the Northern Lights Safari reported a drive of about 2.5 hours to Finland on one cloudy September night, and still saw the lights.

Book your first tour for the first or second evening. If it clouds out, you still have nights left to try again. The coach tour with free repeats lets you rejoin another night if no qualifying photo is taken, and the no-limit small-group chase has no set distance limit on its long option. Every tour on this site cancels free up to 24 hours before, so locking in a date early is a low-risk move if plans change.

And be honest with yourself about the odds. Nobody can promise the aurora on a given night. Over a week, under the oval, with someone willing to drive, your chances are good. More on choosing in our guide to northern lights tours and the best time to go.

Our pick for a first night: a guide who checks the forecasts, a fire and hot chocolate at the stop, and portraits included.

★ 4.8 · About 6 hours

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